Buck halts at $1.1 million bus ‘Super Stop’

SUPER SOAKER? Arlington’s “Super Stop” bus stop on Columbia Pike cost $1.1 million. Plans for an additional 23 stops are on hold while county officials review the design and financials.

By Kenric Ward | Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau

ARLINGTON, Va. — Arlington County dubs itself a “world-class” community. Such hubris has led to a $1.1 million bus stop.

The so-called “Super Stop” was to be the first of 24 along the Columbia Pike corridor, but a torrent of bad publicity halted the $24 million program as local officials retrenched.

OLD SCHOOL: A standard bus stop, across the street from Arlington’s new “Super Stop,” cost 97 percent less. (Photo by Kathryn Watson)

“Total expenditures, including local funds, are currently being examined,” Arlington spokesman Eric Balliet told Watchdog.org on Tuesday. An independent auditor has been called in to review the program.

The first Super Stop, installed at Columbia Pike and Walter Reed last year, hasn’t fared well.

“This is such an embarrassment. It’s unbelievably stupid,” said Joseph Warren, a transportation economist and member of Arlington’s Transportation Advisory Committee.

Warren said his panel was initially told the Super Stop, which features a heated sidewalk, would run $500,000. “We were never apprised of the increased price,” he said in an interview with Watchdog.

Before county officials started deflecting blame on their consultants for the cost overruns, Warren said “no one was asking any questions.”

“They had the money,” he said.

But with an estimated $10.8 million sunk into the Super Stop project — and just one shelter to show for it — future funding is problematic.

Taxpayer groups, including Arlingtonians for Sensible Transit, have roundly criticized the program. Further federal and state funding is questionable in the wake of the public mockery.

Arlington Board Chairman Walter Tejada has called the Super Stop an isolated incident.

Balliet said the county spent “approximately $1.5 million in federal funds for planning and preliminary engineering” of new bus stops. The figure includes “fabrication of three stations, and construction of the prototype,” he said.

“The new stations will accommodate growing transit service and ridership on Columbia Pike and also serve a future streetcar line,” Balliet stated.

But the county has yet to account for the whereabouts of the $10.8 million that Warren says has been expended so far.

J.T. Parmalee, who has used the million-dollar bus shelter, calls the Super Stop a poster child for government waste.

Parmalee, a conservative political consultant, said such pricey edifices only fuel a push by state Delegate Ben Cline, R-Richmond, to repeal the multibillion-dollar transportation tax increase passed by the General Assembly last year.

Kenric Ward is chief of Watchdog.org’s Virginia Bureau. Contact him at kenric@watchdogvirginia.org or at (571) 319-9824. @Kenricward

Kenric Ward is a veteran journalist who has worked on three Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers. A California native, he received a BA from UCLA (Political Science/Phi Beta Kappa) and holds an MBA. He reported and edited at the San Jose Mercury News and the Las Vegas Sun before joining Watchdog.org in 2012 as Virginia Bureau Chief.

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